Enforcing patriarchy - women teach it to their kids no matter the class strata. Taught and reinforced. It's why I appreciate the struggle between Elif and Omer. Right off the bat she's digging in her heels and he's acknowledging the benefits despite that they're in his wheelhouse.
But Palen takes the spotlight over and over. Arda most often respects her wisdom and direction. The women's observations and solutions aren't dismissed. So superiority goes back and forth between the genders in this story. It's no small thing that O keeps asserting that E enroll in the academy. She's got what it takes to be on his level as does Palen.
No wonder it was so popular in Turkey. Sometimes it felt like a tennis match that ended in a draw. A very good thing, imo. My husband and I have been together since 1976 and we're still playing that tennis match we started.
I still like the ending a whole lot. The producers left things open for more. But they don't really need to return to this story and perhaps jump the shark some day. We get the picture. I'm curiously drawn to the setting of the ending. This series didn't explore very much of Turkey or even Istanbul. Given the number of episodes I thought they might. There were a lot of scenes in gritty spots. No travelogue like Winter Sun is right off the bat with the fishing village. It's okay by me. There was enough contrast with the area of Elif's family home to give us a sense of a city in transition.
It's a very secular show. I don't recall a single inevitable glimpse of Hagia Sophia. Although it's a Turksh production it was distributed elsewhere. The only time I noticed a mosque was when the camera panned over the town in the last episodes. Most of the prayer references throughout were by Omer's mom who is iconic, imo.
Tayyar as Trump has me nodding and chuckling! Bad guys have a way of hanging on. A combination of smarts and cunning makes a strong glue. Btw, I don't think we'd ever see Omer's solution on U.S. network tv in prime time.
The wrap up of the characters was a little rushed. Given how many episodes, they could have taken there time. But since they spent most of their precious last minutes on *the relationship* I'm willing to forgive any and every writing sin.
Btw, about the friend I mentioned a while back. The one I thought would never put up with how this story progresses – she's into it. She only recently asked if it progressed as slow in the future as it is right now around episode 15. I remembered also wondering about that back then. There was a little slump early one. But she's continuing now that she knows that it's only that first slow climb of the roller coaster ride that is BML.
Oops. I thought I was done. I'm grateful for the introduction to Turkish poets.
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